


choosing our jagged truths

by perfectlystill



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Incest, how do you tag things lalala, not really any graphic violence but a brief mention of it???, post-season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 22:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2363879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It would be wrong, Octavia thinks, to admit that sometimes she is happy.</i> post-season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	choosing our jagged truths

**Author's Note:**

> title from Margaret Atwood's "We Are Hard On Each Other," and written months later for [this prompt](http://stainofmylove.livejournal.com/239898.html?thread=6276634#t6276634). i am not profiting off of this, unless you count my own tears profit.

It would be wrong, Octavia thinks, to admit that sometimes she is happy. 

The sea is crystal and the moon glows silver. There's an almost-calm that settles over everything at night, a stillness that, for the first time in a long time, Octavia doesn't itch to break. Lincoln touches her, gentle but firm, kisses her temple and holds her like she is fragile but he is not afraid to break her. 

The sea smells like freedom. 

It would be wrong, Octavia thinks, to admit that sometimes she is happy. 

 

 

Somtimes at night, she wakes with a start. 

She remembers the exploding sound of the ship, the flash of the fire, the screams of the dead. 

She doesn't realize she's crying until she touches her cheek and the pads of her fingers come away wet.

 

 

They meet Luna and she tells them: "Everyone is dead. Between the blast and-- and the Mountain Men, everyone must be dead."

Lincoln wraps his arm around her waist like he is afraid he is going to collapse. Octavia breathes, steady inhales and exhales, clenches her fists by her side. "My brother is not dead."

Luna looks at her with a mixture of empathy and pity. 

 

 

She likes learning to fight. She likes the weight of the blade in her hand, running her finger along the steel. She likes sparring with Lincoln and the look of lust in his eyes the first time she wins. 

She learns to twirl her sword and she laughs, drops it on the ground, jumping up and down. Her giggle echoes among the trees, reverberating back to her sounding wrong, distorted. 

"Don't do that in battle," Lincoln warns her, smile edging along his mouth.

She sees her brother in that smile, blinks it away.

 

 

When her ribs gets sliced open and she falls down, Lincoln squeezes her hand and brushes the hair from her face. Luna heals the wound with herbs that burn and water her blood turns red. 

When her ribs get sliced open and she falls down, she falls in and out of sleep, the world blurring and her head pounding. It hurts to open her eyes. She wakes up after an indistinguishable amount of time, the sun setting over the mountains, casting everything in purple, making the sky look like a bruise. 

When her ribs gets sliced open and she falls down, she wakes up with a dry throat, wishing her brother was here to take care of her, to tell her the story their mother always told them when they got fevers:

_You have fire in your blood._

 

 

Lies Octavia likes to tell herself: she wants the mark on her body honoring the life of her first kill, her ribs don't hurt when it rains. 

If her brother was dead, she would know.

 

 

They run into Clarke and Monty.

Octavia bursts into tears, her entire body heaving. 

 

 

She waits hours before she asks. 

She and Clarke are left sitting by the dying fire, the embers glowing. Octavia watches one burn out. She watches Clarke poke at it, the smoke rising. "Is my brother okay?"

Clarke swallows. "He didn't make it into the ship, before . . ."

Octavia's lip shakes. 

"I don't know," Clarke says, reaching out to touch her, fingers trembling in the space between them. 

 

 

Octavia has missed her brother before. 

She missed him during long stretches on the ark when both he and her mother were out, leaving her with nothing but a needle and some thread, a stuffed bear and an unraveling blanket. She missed him in prison, the bed hard and more food than she was used to. 

She's missed him before, but never like this; never with a knife in her hand and hollowness in her chest. 

 

 

Octavia takes the hollowness in her chest and fills it with Lincoln's mouth on her collarbone, with a gun in her hand -- heavier than a sword, throwing her off-balance -- with a tick in her jaw and with a hardness she never wanted. 

 

 

"I loved him," she whispers to a butterfly, glittering against the black sky before landing on her finger. "I didn't know before. But I think he loved me, too."

 

 

"Are you okay?" Lincoln asks, brushing his thumb against her eyebrow. 

"I'm fine," she says. 

He looks at her, runs his knuckles along her cheekbone. 

"Anger is not the answer," he says. 

"Bellamy wouldn't say that." 

 

 

She sees him first, hand reaching for her gun when the twig snaps under her boot. She blinks like she doesn't quite believe he is real. 

She runs to him, jumps into his arms, holds him so tight her fingernails dig into his skin. 

"You're alive," she breathes. His eyes sparkle and she kisses his cheek, his jaw, his chin, his mouth. "You're alive."

"I told you," he starts, smiling. "I've got this."

She laughs, feels it ripped from her body, painful and real. He buries his face in her hair, kisses her temple and sets her down, hands moving to her face. Her eyes flutter shut and her mouth parts. 

 

 

Octavia doesn't care if it's wrong, doesn't care if she shouldn't, if they shouldn't.

It fills the hollowness in her chest. 

She is tired of feeling guilty for her happiness.


End file.
